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January 24, 2012
Santa Clara referendum petitions validated, vote still a ways off
The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters has confirmed that Santa Clara Plays Fair has collected the 4,500 signatures required to force a vote on the $1.2 billion San Francisco 49ers stadium plan, which would require the city to put out $850 million in cash and get somewhere between all of it and not very much of it back.
Of course, Santa Clara has insisted that the stadium project isn't subject to referendum, so next stop will be, as promised, court. Stadium opponents have enlisted the ACLU to seek an injunction against starting stadium construction until the referendum issue can be settled.
Exactly how much the 49ers are committing to backstop the city's stadium bonds remains murky — I'm still puzzling my way through the rat's nest of the city's development agreement, and you're welcome to do the same if you want to play along at home. Though it's worth noting that Stanford sports economist Roger Noll did tell the Wall Street Journal last week that the city's return on its stadium investment could range "from pretty close to break-even to a catastrophe," which I'll take as validation of my own analysis.
Good luck SCPF, your success will help our cause.
No more welfare for billionaires.
Posted by JohninSD on January 24, 2012 05:02 PM
@John in SD - is there a reporter or reporters who will write objective information about stadiums? If so, please refer that reporter(or reporters) to the SCPF website so that he/she can contact SCPF. What has happened here could happen in San Diego too (NFL team spending $5 million on a campaign, extreme harassment of stadium subsidy opponents, the city carpet bombed with Yes yardsigns and TV/radio ads, newspaper ads, and mailers, Pro-stadium biased newspaper coverage, etc.). The stadium campaign here really divided the city. It used to be a peaceful place to live. Now, not so much. People who want the stadium and people who stand to financially benefit from it have been absolutely awful to people who don't want to subsidize stadiums. I don't think our city will ever really heal from this experience of one group trying to use big money to put another group under its' thumb.
I'm sure the teams learn from one another in terms of what works (campaigning using the schools, for example) and they'll try the same things in San Diego.
Posted by SantaClaraTaxpayer on January 24, 2012 07:30 PM
Meanwhile a editorial today in the Merc about how awesome a SB in Santa Clara will be.
Certainly attending a SB has to be the peak experience of a lifetime that anyone could ever hope for.